1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a container loading and unloading apparatus, and more particularly to such an apparatus including a container supporter disposed on a lower side of the container, elevation means provided in a chassis of a freight car, and guidance means for compensating a container main body to be placed in position during a loading work.
2. Description of the Related Art
It is well known that a container for cargo transportation has a standardized cuboidal shape so as to be easily stacked up for land or marine transportation.
A forklift truck, a crane or the like is used for loading or unloading the container on or from a freight car in land, and the container itself serves as a handy warehouse of a kind when it is located on the ground.
Since the container is simply a cuboidal rigid body, however, it is inconvenient to necessarily mobilize the forklift truck, the crane or the like whenever the loading or unloading work is performed.
That is, the container is accompanied with frequent loading and unloading works from the viewpoint of its purpose, and one freight car repeatedly transports a plurality of containers while replacing one by another.
On all such occasions, equipments including the forklift truck, the crane or the like are inevitably needed for the container loading and unloading, thus causing a problem in requiring many equipments and labors to transport or store only one container.
Accordingly, the present invention has been made to overcome the above-mentioned problems, and it is an object of the present invention to provide a container having a loading and unloading apparatus which can facilitate a container loading or unloading work without a separate special equipment such as a forklift truck, a crane or the like.
To accomplish this object, there is provided a container loading and unloading apparatus in accordance with the present invention, the apparatus comprising:
a container support frame provided at a base of a container main body and consisting of a reception frame and a traverse frame;
an inverted L-shaped container supporter installed in the traverse frame and consisting of a horizontal adjustable supporter, a vertical supporter and a vertical adjustable supporter;
upper and lower covers formed at an upper end of the vertical supporter and a lower end of the vertical adjustable supporter, respectively;
upper and lower hanger fittings fixedly mounted in the upper and lower covers, respectively for hanging both ends of a pair of coil springs;
a fixing device provided at an end of a side surface of the traverse frame for fixing the container supporter;
a reception groove formed on an outer side of the reception frame for receiving the container supporter;
a plurality of elevation means provided in a chassis of a freight car, each elevation means constituted by a hydraulic cylinder operating in a vertically upward direction; and
guidance means disposed in a position corresponding to that of the elevation means.
Preferably, the fixing device provided in the traverse frame comprises a support case, a fixing pin passing through the traverse frame by way of the support case, an operation pin forming a right angle to the fixing pin and integrated with the fixing pin, a handle joined with both ends of the operation pin, and an elastic repellent spring resiliently supported on the fixing pin.
It is preferred that the guidance means comprises an engagement fitting formed with a guide hole, and an upward sloping projection formed at an upper end of the hydraulic cylinder, the engagement fitting and the upward sloping projection being provided at the upper end of the elevation means and the base of the container main body in an opposite position to each other, respectively.
Alternatively, the guidance means may comprise a sloping groove formed at the upper end of the elevation means, and an engagement fitting provided at the base of the container main body and having a downward sloping projection in a position corresponding to that of the sloping groove.
The hydraulic cylinder as the elevation means is preferably provided in the chassis of the freight car in such a manner that it is positioned at a number of locations of the chassis, respectively and can be elevated in the vertically upward direction.
According to the so constructed container loading and unloading apparatus, the container loading or unloading work at the time of its transportation and storage can be easily performed without the separate equipment such as the forklift truck, the crane or the like, thereby cutting down equipments and labors. As the case may be, it is possible to stack up the containers as it does in the conventional container.